dangerous idea

Here.

HT: Bob Prokop

HT: Bob Prokop.

This was written by Aslan (who is not a tame lion).

This is an article by Chris Giovanazzo.

Do you think the problem of debt could be made better by asking the wealthiest 1% to pay more in taxes? Jesus taught that the rich have a responsibility to help the poor, and sometimes he suggests that they are going to hell for failing to do so. Shouldn't the teachings of Jesus be reflected in the tax code? Who Would Jesus Tax?

If you think that Obama is a class warrior, he pales in comparison to Jesus.

Paul said, "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."." (2 Thess 3:10) But is the flip side of this statement true? Do you think that those who either work, are attempting the best they can to work, or people who are unable to work should eat? In particular, should we make sure that children are taken care of?




It doesn't seem to fit well with the New Testament to think that, for example there is no problem with someone putting in a 40-hour work week and then sleeping on the streets or in their car. So a Christian can't very well oppose the goal of seeing to it that workers, or would-be workers, be able to make a living working. What they might oppose, however, is deputize the government and making use of taxpayer money to accomplish this goal. But how else could it be accomplished?

I was listening to a religious radio station to a program on finances a few years back. The program said that people are, of course, commanded to tithe to the church. If you are a husband, and you want to tithe, you can and should make that decision for your family. However, if you are a wife, and you want to tithe but your husband doesn't, then you can try to change his mind, but it is his decision as to whether or not the family tithes or not.

Now, even if you believe in a hierarchy between men and women, is this sort of a conclusion required? Does "headship" translate to "final decision-making power?" These conclusions are typically drawn by Bible teachers, but I never see them actually drawn in the text of Scripture. And if, as Ephesians 5 clearly teaches, both husband and wife are enjoined to submit to one another, how is that even possible if the man always knows that if he holds out long enough, his wife is going to have to give in?

From the Anglican Scotist.

This exegetical discussion has some relevance to the debate surrounding open theism.

Does God change His mind? It all depends. If He has decreed



a certain course of action or outcome, then He will not retract a


statement or relent from a declared course of action. Verses stat-


ing or illustrating this truth must not be overextended, however.


Statements about God not changing His mind serve to mark spe-


cific declarations as decrees. They should not be used as proof


texts of God’s immutability, nor should they be applied generally


to every divine forward-looking statement. If God has not de-


creed a course of action, then He may very well retract an an-


nouncement of blessing or judgment. In these cases the human


response to His announcement determines what He will do. Pas-


sages declaring that God typically changes His mind as an ex-


pression of His love and mercy demonstrate that statements de-


scribing God as relenting should not be dismissed as anthropo-


morphic. At the same time such passages should not be overex-


tended. God can and often does decree a course of action.26

Franklin Mason argues that Perfect Guide Inerrancy, as opposed to perfect truth inerrancy, is what is needed. Please do follow the link back to his original discussion of Perfect Guide Inerrancy,

This is an attempt to avoid the conclusion of what I call the inerrancy or chaos argument. The idea of the inerrancy or chaos argument is that without some firm doctrine of biblical inerrancy, theology will sooner or later give away the store. Everything that our sinful hearts don't want to believe, or whatever doesn't fit with the Zeitgeist, will be swept aside, and Christianity reduced to platitudes.

On the other hand, we want to avoid the kind of literalism that led Martin Luther to condemn heliocentrism because it conflicted with a literal reading of the sun standing still for Joshua, which of course also led the Church to make Galileo be silent about heliocentrism.

C. S. Lewis wrote two letters two American writers relevant to the inerrancy issue, which might be helpful in developing Mason's project. As would his chapter on Scripture in Reflections on the Psalsm.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon rather than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest all that is cruel (Paine, 1974, p. 60).

A more serious critique of Lewis from conservative evangelical quarters.

Yes, for me the sacrificial love of Christ is the canon within the canon. If that's cherry picking, so be it!
Ron: It appears to me that debate about moral realism (or objectivism) vs. moral relativism to be fruitless. I think everyone at heart knows that moral values really exist and aren't just subjective constructions. Otherwise, atheists wouldn't point out all the bad events in Christian history. Why would Dawkins point out the moral evils of Christians if he didn't believe that morality was something absolute and not just a cultural or biological product?
VR: Precisely. And if relativism is where naturalism leads, it lets the air out of the argument from evil. I've often wondered why the argument from evil is often thought to be somehow stronger than your average argument. It points to an explanatory gap in the theist's understanding of the world, but there are plenty of arguments that point out explanatory gaps for naturalism.
What I come up with is that, on the face of things, it allows the atheist to hang on to his or her moral purity. It presumably lets you call evil evil, and not have to fit it into some broader pattern in which it is good in some sense. But if this comes from a naturalist, and if Lewis is right that naturalism is going to lead logically to some kind of moral subjectivism, then it seems to me that that advantage disappears. You can't say of the Amalekite massacre that it is really, truly, honest to goodness evil.